Wales

Alanna Jones

Alanna Jones | Photo: Körber-Stiftung

"The dragon and the eagle" (2016)

In October 2016, twenty-four award winners from EUSTORY competitions met at a History Camp in Georgia. For this occasion they prepared posters about their projects and findings which were displayed in the National History Museum in Tbilisi.

My competition entry was about the role that Welsh migrants played in the USA. Our research included for example, Welsh members of the Ku Klux Klan, US Presidents with a Welsh background and Welsh soldiers in the US Civil War. We created a display showing our findings which will be displayed in museums and in the building of the National Assembly in Cardiff.

How did you decide on your topic?We decided on our topic as a group under the guidance of our history teacher. I was interested in this topic as it is something different and it isn’t something we study in school. Also, we felt that this was a topic that has largely been ignored by historians which gave us an extra incentive during our research.

How did you react when you came upon surprising points during your research?The most surprising point that I came across was that Abraham Lincoln printed pamphlets in Welsh in the presidential election campaign. Also Pennsylvania was originally called “New Wales” due to large numbers of Welsh migrants there. The main difficulty we came across was defining ‘Welsh” as some people spoke Welsh but were born and lived in the USA. We worked as a group to define Welsh by sharing ideas and views.